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I have been working on some ideas for a tau army and creating some character ideas and was looking for an opinion on something. One thing I thought was a shame is that as a monstrous creature with a multi-tracker, the Riptide would have the ability to fire three weapons a round but does not have anything in its codex options to give it any more than two. I was trying to figure out what an acceptable point value would be to have a second heavy burst cannon. Granted the one nova charge per turn would only be able to affect one of them. Considering you would need to give up the shield arm, this would also give up the 5+ invuln save, unless you strap the shield to the other gun somehow. Losing the invuln would certainly reduce the cost of the second gun somewhat, but I haven't been able to find anything specifically comparable to the heavy burst cannon that would give me an idea of the point value. I wasn't sure what people's thoughts on this were.

Expensive.

A weapon should be costed according to it's dammage over time (it's strength, how often it will be able to fire(range, mobility...), how durable it's platform is) which is very high on a Riptide.

Maybe half the base cost of another suit when it keeps the 5+, a good deal less when it looses it.

I have a custom riptide commander that uses two modified Heavy burst cannons. Here's the rules if you are intrested

Commander Stormbreaker
Shas'ar N'dras Ofesume Da'lor'Rinyon

Points: 260

WS3
BS4
S6
T6
W5
I2
A3
LD10
Sv2+

UNIT TYPE: jet pack monstrous creature, character

WARLORD TRAIT: Precision of the skilled hunter

WARGEAR: 2 sunstorm burst cannons, XV104 riptide suit, advanced targeting system, counter-fire defence mechanism, riptide shield generator, twin-linked fusion blaster

SPECIAL RULES: X2 nova reactor, supporting fire, Enemy of the cause

X2 nova reactor
Works as a normal nova reactor except that it functions on a 4+, failed attempts do not cause a wound on the commander and nova-charge is exchanged to:

Enhanced targeting: Ar'Ofesume may fire one of his weapons at a different unit

Enemy of the Cause: an army that includes Ar'Ofesume may not include any Ethereals, Ofesume has already excecuted them.

Lets add a second baleflamer to the Helldrake while we're at it.

If you look at the new FW Riptide variant you'll notice that it has two guns but no shield or jetpack. That seems like the most reasonable compromise that any non-Tau player would ever agree to, you get more firepower but pay a lot of points and give up JSJ to get it.

After checking out the FW variant I'm leaning toward that. It certainly seems like a more balanced trade off. Also I gotta say, the FW model looks amazing. Wasn't crazy about how they changed the head at first, but it's growing on me.

Admittedly the other reason I was considering all this was because I just think Riptides look better dual wielding. Dantioch's commander looks awesome with the twin burst cannons, for example.

In the end if it became too much of an issue I'd probably just give the model two burst cannons for looks but count it as only having one. As long as the shield is strapped onto one of the guns all of its systems will be represented on the model, just that the burst cannon will be super represented. There will be no mistaking what it's main weapon is.

I'm definitely going to see what stats end up coming out on the FW variant, though, to see exactly how they work it. That could be very interesting.

What New fw riptide?

The XV107 pictures are hard to find since there aren't any links on their website but if you subscribe to FW's newsletters or follow FW on facebook you can see the pictures. It is basically a riptide without the jump packs and shield, but has two guns called pulse submunitions cannons and a different head.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/News/Games_Day_Preview_One.html